


Inferno

by epsiloneridani



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms, Halo: Reach - Fandom, Reach - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Claustrophobia, Fall of Reach, Family Feels, Found Family, Gen, Halo: Reach, Halo: Reach videogame, Hurt No Comfort, Reach, Spartan II - Freeform, canon character death, canon-typical language and violence, headhunter, implied PTSD, spartan 2, spartan 3, spartan iii - Freeform, spartan program
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 05:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15623844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsiloneridani/pseuds/epsiloneridani
Summary: Emile is burning brimstone and broken battlecries and Jun is calm control and arctic ice. Whatever their differences, they’re still Spartans – and Spartans do not fear and Spartans do not die.That’s what they tell themselves, anyway.





	Inferno

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Canon-typical language and violence. Claustrophobia, implied PTSD, canon character death.

_What are you afraid of?_

He asks it late one night, when they’re worn and weary and battlescarred, perched across from each other at a table. Emile chokes on his coffee, sputtering and slamming his mug and his hands onto the table.

" _What?"_

Jun grimaces, twisting his hands together tightly. “You heard me.”

Emile blinks at him and then leans back and props an arm on the booth’s support. The mess is bathed in the burning flame of a dying star the  _Dawn_  is passing; its light flickers across his face, a sunset inferno for the fire he carries in his soul. Emile’s silent for a long moment, regarding Jun with a rare contemplation -- raging red wrath quelled to simmering crimson.

Then he scoffs.

“When did you start thinkin’ so much?”

Jun shrugs, passing his mug back and forth between his hands, faster, faster. He blinks and he’s crawling through that tunnel and the world is shattering and raining down around him and he can’t breathe -- has to  _breathe_ , get out, get out  _get out_ \--

_Jun, we’re almost there. Hang on._

_What are you afraid of?_

_I can’t breathe._

_Jun!_

_Can’t breathe—_

_Hang on!_

“ _Hey._ ”

Emile clamps a hand around his wrist. Jun glances at it, glances up to meet his burning stare. They’re locked for a long second of suffocating silence. “You’re pretty restless lately,” Emile says at last, and his grip spasms and tightens. “Thought that was my thing.”

Jun snorts and tugs away. Doctor Reynolds tells him restlessness is just a symptom, tells him with treatment it’ll probably pass – not that he can say that to Emile. Not that he’d  _ever_  say that to Carter. “I like having something to do,” he says evenly, staring into his coffee. “Right now we’re just...waiting.”

Maybe Emile doesn’t see the half-truth. Maybe he knows better than to press. “All right,” he allows, leaning back to lounge and breaking that burning glare. “That’s fair, I guess.”

Jun toys with the mug’s handle without really noticing. The  _Dawn_  rumbles along, a lumbering beast in the night lit only by death’s light. Stars blaze unbroken until their sacrifice damns them: for all their ancient eternity, they’re still mortal.

“They exhaust their hydrogen supply,” Jun says suddenly. To him, it’s always seemed like suffocating.

_Hang on. Hang on. Damn it, Jun, hang—_

The flames flicker in Emile’s dark gaze as he slams his cup down for the second time.

“What the hell is wrong with you tonight?” he demands. “First it’s ‘what are you scared of?’ – which is  _nothin’_ , by the way – and now it’s  _science chatter?_ ”

Jun quirks a brow.

Emile is unblinking, incredulous. “You okay?” he asks at last, and though it’s gruff and as gratingly sarcastic as he can make it Jun still hears the pulsing note of genuine concern.

Stars suicide in their own inferno.

“Yeah,” Jun says, looking past him to the blazing night beyond. “Fine.”

_What are you afraid of?_

He doesn’t think of it again until he’s standing ramrod straight clutching the Pelican’s bay rail for support and Halsey’s seated in the copilot’s place, snapping orders at the ODST beside her. Jun barely hears it.

“ _You’re on your own, Noble. Carter out._ ”

For all the chaos and carnage wracking Reach, his surface comm still works. For all the hell he’s just lived, he will not be spared even this.

Carter is dead.

The channel crackles, Emile barking at Liz, and for a long beat there’s nothing but rough breathing and broken cries. Emile snarls, Liz snaps, and there are broken footfalls, the unsteady strides of a desperate sprint.

“Six, time for you to leave. Get the Package to the pad...and get your ass off this planet. I’ve got your back.” There’s a mechanical clanking, Emile adjusting some kind of heavy equipment.

_“Ready to take possession of the package, Noble.”_

They’re so close.

_“Cruiser, adjusting heading for the Autumn! Noble Four, I need fire on that cruiser or we’re not getting out of here! Do you copy?”_

“You’ll have your window, sir.” Emile is burning determination but something sick twists in Jun’s chest. The Pelican shudders beneath his feet, flak from somewhere far below.

_“Bridge, this is the Captain. We have the Package. Returning to the Autumn, over.”_

They’re so damn close.

Even over the comm he knows that sound. It slices through the static like a scythe and then the line erupts in chaos. A bird’s going down, screaming and skidding and scattering shards. Emile’s shotgun loads, fires – loads, fires.

“Sir, we’re on approach to CASTLE base.”

Jun’s dimly aware of the note, dimly aware he’s still standing stiffly with his free hand pressed to the side of his helmet, dimly aware the pilot must be staring at him expectantly, but he says nothing.

“Who’s next?” Emile barks, a hoarse war cry.

They’re so damn  _close_.

He’s just barely taken a breath but it’s barely a beat before it’s broken. The sword hisses, a seething crackle over Four’s line – and drives straight through. At first Jun doesn’t isn’t sure where, isn’t sure how bad, he’s too far away to get vitals now, but Emile forces a choked gasp and he knows.

“I’m ready!” Emile roars, and there’s the  _schink_  of a sheathe and a sharp bloody slice. “How ‘bout you?”

He tumbles. He falls. There’s a dull clatter as he hits the ground, a slight shifting, and then – silence, silence, silence save his stuttering breath

Damn Halsey. Damn babysitting. He should be there. He should  _be there_. Jorge is dead, Kat is dead, Carter is  _dead_ , Emile is heaving, heaving,  _dying_ , and there’s a hailstorm of plasma fire somewhere in the distance so Liz can’t be too far off but she’s got her comm on silent.

_I can’t guarantee secure anymore._

_Can the Covenant trace it to us?_

I _could._

The Covenant are all over the planet. It doesn’t matter anymore. Jun damns comm silence and snaps the line live and begs it to go through.

“ _Emile._ ”

Emile’s chuckle is wet. “ _Hey,_ ” he forces, sucking a desperate gulp. There’s concern there, but also a flooding relief he’s too hurt to suppress. “ _Jun_.”

Jun grits his teeth. “Bad?”

Emile gasps another laugh. That’s enough.

“Hang on.” It sounds strong but it’s so damn hollow. “Hang on, Emile.”

Emile doesn’t answer for a long moment and Jun bites back the urge to demand a response.

“Dyin’.... _alone_ ,” Emile says at last. He gurgles, chokes and gasps desperately for another breath, maybe spasming, seizing while his body screams for life.

“ _What?_ ”

“S-scared of,” Emile coughs and it hits Jun like a blow to the gut. He can’t breathe right.

_What are you afraid of?_

“You’re not alone,” Jun says all at once, an explosive plea that comes out calmer than he feels it should. “I promise. You’re not alone.”

Emile’s breath is ragged. “I’m here,” Jun repeats quietly. “I’m here, Em. You’re not alone. Listen to me.  _You’re not alone._ ”

_What are you afraid of?_

“ _Jun_ —”

“I’m here, brother. I’m here.”

Emile’s gurgling again, clattering and spasming and writhing in his agony, and Jun presses his eyes closed and drives his teeth into his lip. “I’m here,” he says hoarsely. “It’s all right. You’re not alone.”

Emile’s breath hitches, catches. He’s drowning, drowning.

“You’re not alone.”

Stars blaze unbroken until their sacrifice damns them: to Jun, it’s always seemed like suffocating.

“You’re not alone,” Jun repeats to the bleeding silence. “I  _promise_.”

“LZ’s hot, repeat, LZ’s hot—”

“Spartan!”

CASTLE looms on the horizon, their last stronghold in this hell. “I can clear it,” Jun says coolly, slinging his rifle to the ready and slamming the hatch release. “Pilot, get me close.”

There’s a small Covenant armada hovering below; the fortress’s guardians are pinned down, huddled behind wrecked Warthogs and whatever remains of their Pelicans.

“That’s  _crazy_ , you can’t—”

Stars suicide in their own inferno.

“Get me  _close_ ,” Jun barks over the rushing wind. “ _Now_.”

“You’re clear!”

Jun leaps. The world is on fire, a wall of crimson flame. His chest burns, burns, aches, and Covenant are turning, charging. Too late. Too late. His chest burns, burns, aches, and for the raging red wrath that roars in his veins he can barely see straight.

 _What are you_ afraid of?

_Losing all of you._

 


End file.
